Marion Hedgepeth was a train robber and outlaw with style. “The Debonair Bandit” usually wore a suit, cravat, bowler hat and had neatly polished shoes.
That’s what he was wearing on New Year’s Eve 1910 when he entered a Chicago saloon. Hedgepeth—dying of tuberculosis and fresh out of a Nebraska prison—was robbing the place when a detective entered. He gave the outlaw a chance to surrender, but Hedgepeth opened fire instead. A gunfight ensued. The nattily attired bandit died firing

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus